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At first glance, what looks to be an impromptu car show has assembled at the Tire Rack’s corporate headquarters in South Bend, Indiana, on a brisk Friday morning. The cars and trucks gathered in the lot are a hodgepodge of seemingly every enthusiast niche imaginable. There are Porsches, M3s, Mustangs, Camaros, and even a Mazda5. There are 68 vehicles in all, a starting grid that easily eclipses a NASCAR field. Teams of two to three people — friends, students, spouses, parents, and kids — represent each car. They’re here to not only test the limits of their vehicles, but of themselves as well.

The 27th running of the Tire Rack One Lap of America is about to begin. It’s an aptly named event, a nine-day test of endurance, preparation, and reliability. This year’s One Lap covers almost 3500 miles — roughly the same amount of interstate that separates Seattle from Key West. The lap goes as far north as Wisconsin, southwest to the heart of Oklahoma, and east to New Jersey before returning to the Tire Rack for the finish. Teams start their day at one racetrack and end it by arriving at another one a few states later, typically past midnight. For most, the goal is simply surviving.

If the premise doesn’t interest you, further explanation won’t either. As Dan Schaut described it last year, “Try to explain you are going on a weeklong drive around the country, driving most of the night and racing most of the day, spending two to three hours in a hotel each night if things go right, without changing clothes or eating anything that does not come in a wrapper, to hopefully win a trophy. And you have to pay for the opportunity. That is weird.”

And yet most One Lappers are regulars. Dan, a veteran of 12 events, returns this year with sons Ben and Nick in a current-generation BMW M3. Plenty of entrants have 20 events to their name, and one, Michael Hickman, has driven all of them with his 1981 Camaro Z28. Fay Teal, despite being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1981, can claim more than 20 One Laps. She runs each year to raise awareness of the condition through Laps to Conquer MS, which Fay and her husband, David, started in 1989. This year, Fay, David, and son Wayne Hickman are competing in the New Jersey Motorsports Park pace car — a 2009 WRX STI.

Ask them why they keep coming back, and the experienced Lap Dogs will give dozens of reasons. Chief among them is “the people.” There’s a camaraderie among One Lappers that you don’t see in any other racing series. You may not even see it with a tight-knit group of friends. The week brings difficulties and stresses that, coupled with sleep-deprived delirium, form a tight bond between competitors and teams. The Lap Dogs mentor the rookie Lap Pups. Competitors come to one another’s aid during breakdowns. Everyone makes the trek together, teammates and competitors alike. The teammate relationship goes through a predictable cycle throughout the week: cautious friendliness, grating annoyance, reluctant coping, vengeful hatred, and, at the end, either triumphant jubilation or a spiteful de-friending via Facebook.

At four days and 1700 miles in, Sebastian Glowacki and Tony Song trade “I hate you” barbs in dry sarcasm while they lean on a radioactive orange Lotus Elise in the pits at Gateway International Raceway. Last year — their first — they brought Song’s blue Elise. This one is Glowacki’s, and it’s been a trying experience. Shifting to sixth, Song explains, places your hand uncomfortably close to the passenger’s crotch. “Last year we warned each other before a shift,” Songs says, “Now it’s just by sound. You move your knee, even when you’re sleeping.”

The lack of creature comforts is worth the tradeoff, though. Glowacki and Song have an ongoing bet with the Porsche Boxster S team of Richard Albertus and Loye Troxler. Whoever loses has to mount and hang a picture of the winning team in their home. Last year, a “beautiful” photograph of a blue Elise with a full moon pressed against the passenger window had to be enlarged, mounted, and hung.

Such eccentricity defines this event. Take the father-and-son team of Carl Warren and Sam Kimberley-Bryant. Their Ultima GTR has fixed windows, no air conditioning, and a cabin best described as exceedingly intimate. Let’s reiterate. You can’t roll the windows down or flip a switch to cool the cabin. Their only relief comes from a small vent in each side window that can be opened by hand. There isn’t much to muffle the road noise or the Chevy V-8 that sits right behind the cabin. Is it a Lap Pup vehicle selection mistake? Nope. This is Warren’s sixth time in the car. The team has their coping strategy down. They pack the essentials — underwear, socks — in plastic bags and stuff them in various openings inside the cabin.

You have to imagine some envy surrounds the dealership-fresh 911 Turbo of Hugh Bate and Rene von Richthofen. Without a wing fit for a passenger airliner and a droning exhaust, it’s invisible among the top ten. No one pays it any attention at the drag strip during Day 5’s event. Instead, the crowd hoots for the American muscle and the ensuing burnouts. The 911 quietly rolls around the burnout box and triggers the starting light. As the ambers click down, the twin-turbo flat-six races toward redline and the Porsche disappears at the green. Stunned onlookers attempt to chase it down the track with their eyes, but can only watch as “10.90” flashes on the display. The Porsche is the fastest car here in a straight line, and it ultimately takes fifth overall. Problems? None. Modification plans? Not really. Bate says he’d consider some minor suspension work, new wheels and tires. But when you’re fifth in a stock car, is there really more that needs to be done?

Howard LaFever’s mostly stock Cadillac CTS-V doesn’t fare so well. While charging around Road America on Day 2, LaFever, a veteran of 17 One Laps, runs out of brakes. His black Cadillac approaches a sharp left at over 100 mph. It doesn’t slow. The car turns, presumably the driver’s effort to shed speed, and skips across the gravel trap before going airborne, flipping over the catch walls and onto its roof. The damage looks terrifying, but LaFever walks away with just a cut on his finger. He later goes to a local car dealership and buys a used white Chrysler Crossfire — selection is limited in Wisconsin on a Sunday, LaFever says. His coupe is automatic and the only modification it wears is oversized aftermarket wheels. And though he’s no longer accruing points, LaFever still participates. He’s also planning to take the totaled CTS-V home; the powertrain still works fine. Time for a 2011 One Lap project.

Other than LaFever’s dramatic aerial acrobatics, drama runs thankfully low this year. Doug Wilks and Rolex Sports Car Series driver Leh Keen run a flawless series of events, taking first at every road course we visit with their well-prepared Porsche GT2. The trouble comes after the drag strip: Keen begins complaining that the rear feels slippery. After a corner worker brings over a chunk of rubber, saying it fell from underneath their car, the team looks closer. They find that one of the rear sway bar mounts had snapped and the resulting damage has torn the rear axle boot. They spend all night at a friend’s fabrication shop and make it to the next track with just enough time to make their run group. With three hours of sleep under his belt — four from the night before — Keen still wheels the GT2 to first place. “It didn’t feel like One Lap until last night,” he says after a quick nap on the pit floor.

Dan Corcoran isn’t so lucky. He and his son Kyle regularly place their 427 Corvette in the top five, which is where they hoped to end up at the end of the week. This year would’ve been Dan’s twentieth consecutive One Lap, and he was planning on calling it quits to focus on Targa Newfoundland instead. It wasn’t to be. During transit, the Corvette begins to exhibit rod knock. The Corcoran’s main competitor, a yellow Corvette Z06 piloted by hot shoe Danny Popp, pulls over to help determine the culprit. They figure it’s a spun bearing. Dan and Kyle’s week ends on a flatbed.

After bowing out early last year because of mechanical issues, Mike Lattos and Erik Van Cleef return this year with high hopes for their highly modified Subaru WRX STI. It starts out strong, pushing high into the overall rankings. And then it snaps a half-shaft while starting a lap halfway through the week. After being towed back to the pits, Lattos and Van Cleef find surprisingly minor collateral damage. The team begins scrambling for replacement parts and everyone, even class rivals, makes their way over to help dismantle and repair. Amanda Hennessey (who’s racing a Chevrolet HHR) and her brother Adam begin a low-tech brake resurfacing job. Richard Fisher, a dealer who’s wheeling a hilarious and fast Mazda5 with a Mazdaspeed3 powertrain, has a group of his dealerships assemble and deliver replacement parts. Steve Rankins, whose potent GT-R retired after engine issues, is a Subaru guru who offers his knowledge and helps wrench on the car. Their efforts pay off. The next day, the Subaru returns and puts down top ten finishes for the rest of the week. Lattos and Van Cleef can’t recover from the point deficit caused by the breakdown, but they’re still racing. That’s what’s important.

The most impressive part of the journey is the smiles and genial demeanor of all the competition. Even when their cars broke, or when they crashed. Or when they were suffering from food poisoning. The people really do make One Lap. They congratulate the strong performances of their rivals, sometimes with free lunches. They leap at the chance to help fix a competitor’s car — even if it’s on the side of the road in the middle of the night. They talk a hilarious amount of good-natured trash talk. They take care of each other. They’re all in the race together.

At One Lap, you may have to spend some serious coin to place high in the overall standings, but having a one-of-a-kind adventure, bragging rights over all your friends, and a unique bonding experience only requires that you sign up.

How We Did It:

For all the competitors, having any serviceable amount of shut-eye this week means sleeping en route as your co-driver keeps their hands on the wheel and their ears on the radar detector. But, judging by the number of drivers strewn out asleep on the floor of the pits during the week, that “sleeping en route” thing didn’t go so well. Why? With rare exceptions, these cars are loud, harsh, and brutally fast. Imagine trying to count sheep during a 747 takeoff — while you’re on the wing.

Everyone we talk to admires two things: One, the small army of 3 and 5 Series that the BMW Performance School loaned to the One Lap crew, and two, our choice of wheels. Like last year, we followed the action once again in a loaded-up Chrysler Town & Country. And, again like last year, it works brilliantly. The cargo area swallows our luggage, and camera and video equipment. We have leather seating, plentiful interior space, satellite navigation, blindspot monitoring, and enough power outlets for our collection of smartphones, laptops, and the all-seeing, all-hearing Valentine One radar detector. Our fully loaded Dark Titanium Town & Country is an oasis of luxury in the desert of performance machines in the pits, the envy of everyone who just wants to recline and sleep.

Our van also came with luxury options that help us big time during our journey. We chose the Town & Country for Uconnect, its on-board WiFi. It’s like having a hotspot in your pocket. The Autonet Mobile router is hardwired to the van, sitting under the driver side rear third row window. It uses Verizon’s cell network, which has meant surprisingly available Internet access throughout the week. It’s how we were able to provide live day-by-day updates.

To help maintain our sanity, FLO TV was also added to the mix. Essentially, it’s a system that delivers live television seamlessly to the Town & Country’s two-screen entertainment system. With Comedy Central and ESPN, among a host of other channels, FLO TV worked flawlessly and lessened the dread of all the eight-hour drives for the backseat passengers.

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